


How Green The Grass

by Missy



Series: How Green The Grass [1]
Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon, Community: polybigbang, Developing Relationship, Drama, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, Multi, Plot Twist, Polyfidelity, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam finally has everything he ever wanted: two best friends, a settled life in Miami and a hot, rich woman at his beck and call.  So why does he feel so distressed when Michael and Fiona announce they're going to have a baby?</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Green The Grass

**Author's Note:**

> This is alternate canon for season 5, in which Michael's Burn Notice, instead of being extended by the Anson situation, is fully resolved. Written for PolyBigBang in '12, for which I had the best mixer/artist ever, [entwashian](http://archiveofourown.org/users/entwashian)! Head to her journal for this fic' accompanying [fanmix!](http://entwashian.livejournal.com/415447.html). Thank you to afullmargin for beta!

  


 

Florida had a distinct odor – of marshmallow, bog water and trees steaming in the sunlit heat. Sam Axe never really noticed it until he had to spend an hour cooped up in a car with Fiona Glennane in the steamy environs of an Orlando morning while inhaling everything the good earth had to offer.

Maybe, he thought to himself, it was because she carried such a distinct scent that carried over the swampy bilge. It was warm, and strangely inviting for someone who was so damn brittle and could be calculating if she had to be. An exotic scent that drew him a little closer to her. Once upon a time, Sam had loathed Fiona – a loathing that had disintegrated in the past couple of years into a warm friendship. He couldn’t quite trace back the change in his opinion of her – maybe it was Fi’s total valor in the face of concentrated madness. Maybe it was the way she stood up for him during Mike’s little crisis with Carmelo. Maybe it was because she’d backed him up back in Venezuela when he and Mike had come to loggerheads over the whole FBI thing. But she definitely seemed to be carrying around a new respect for him. An affection. Dare he even suggest it? Maybe she even liked him. 

That’s how it all started to form in his mind; the little shift in her breathing, in the air. Fiona must have picked up on his confusion, as she spoke abruptly. “Are you all right, Sam?”

“Yeah.” He pulled his binoculars down and gave her a curious look. “Do I have junk hanging out of my nose?”

She tossed him a strange look. “Now what sort of question is that? And you’re completely daft if you think you’re fooling anyone.” 

“Never said I was trying to fool you,” Sam said. “Ever since the whole FBI disaster you’ve been kinda lu-lu,” he replied.

“Lu-lu. You think I’m crazy, do you?” Her chin locked, her eyes flaming bright and angry beneath her chic sunglasses.

He tensed and winced away from her. “Nah, I’m just worried about how you’ve been doing. Mike said…”

“Have you two turned me into a little pet project?” Her deadly tone of voice made Sam’s arm hair prickle. 

“Scout’s honor,” he said. “I wouldn’t dream of talking about you behind your back.” His ridiculous laugh probably tipped off more than he wanted her to know about his thoughts, and her gaze remained even and quite solidly fixed on his face. 

“Well?”

He laughed. “Well what?”

“What did Michael say about me?”

Sam winced. “That he thinks you should take it easy.”

“EASY. He wants me to take it easy?!” she glared at him. “The man won’t be happy with me until I end up in a coma!”

“Ahah! Real funny, Fi…Sooo…want me to get you something to eat?”

“All of you men are in league with each other. Always taking up after each other like a bunch of…” She wrinkled her nose and glanced over the top of her sunglasses into the plate glass storefront of the neighboring restaurant. “Do they make anything that isn’t covered in grease?”

“I think that’s illegal when you own the biggest deep fryer in the county.” Her lip curled up in disgust. “I’ll get you some funnel cakes. With strawberries on top.”

She pouted. “Bring me water.”

“I will,” he said, ducking out the driver’s side door. “And funnel cakes. You need to eat more!” She snorted and glared at him all the way up to the back step of the restaurant.

Inside, Sam saw some familiar faces – including the girlfriend of the guy they’d been tailing. He struck up a flirtatious conversation with her, and she was so pissed off at the guy that she was willing to tell Sam where the man was hiding out, and with whom. Sam scribbled down her every word, marveling at his dumb luck as he rushed to get their breakfast. 

After ten minutes, he returned with the promised food, which he downed with such gusto that Fiona glared at him. “You wouldn’t believe who I found inside…what?” he frowned. 

“You really got that funnel cake?”

“Said I would.” Fi snorted as Sam climbed in. “Mister Smith’s gone to Washington Street. He’s holed up at the youth hostel at 1220.”

“He’s fifty years old,” Fi growled.

“And he looks twenty.”

Fiona sighed and broke up the funnel cake with a plastic fork. Sam, meanwhile, was eating the funnel cake with single-minded lust. He looked up, his face coated in powdered sugar, and raised an eyebrow. “Now whatt’re you looking at?”

“Is she still watching you like a hawk?” Sam shrugged an Fi responded with roll of her eyes. “I don’t know why you put up with her monitoring your every bite.”

“Supply and demand,” Sam replied with a laugh. “I supply the Sammy she first met at that night club, and then I demand cold hard cashola for the effort.”

“What a mature, caring relationship,” Fiona jeered. 

“It works for us.” Sam had no pretenses about what it meant to him, anyway.

“But she’s boring you…” Boring was Fiona’s least-favorite adjective to describe anyone – which explained why she was fighting him so hard.

“So what? I’m used to it, and at least I’m getting something back. ” 

She rolled her eyes, and the suddenly animated gestures she used made Sam wonder about her abrupt passion for the subject. “You should break up with her,” she said, scraping the strawberries from her funnel cake and popping them between her lips, shiny jewel by shiny jewel. Sam watched her eat and felt a flush of blood race up his neck. “That woman isn’t fit to hold your beer. Honestly, are those free tanning sessions so irresistible?” 

Sam shrugged and shuffled his shoulders. “We have an understanding. Elsa doesn’t stick her nose into my business and I try to stick my nose in hers as often as I can.”

“You’re still disgusting, Sam.” She poked the funnel cake and started to break off incremental slices of the fried dough. “Though this isn’t too bad of an idea.”

He rolled his eyes at the compliment, secretly enjoying the sight of her eating up. The stress they’d all been through had been agonizing. What had happened to Mike with his notice had made all of them edgy, and eventually his entire family on a day-to-day basis had absorbed the stresss. Now they had time to step back and look at the big picture, since Mike was back in and he and Fi had settled into whatever passed for domestic tranquility in their little world. As for Sam, he planned on living it up – kicking back with his buds and some mojitos and enjoying a few simple domestic cases. 

This would require Michael’s participation, but he had a feeling his friend wouldn’t be hard to sway.

*** 

“She’s driving me crazy.”

Michael glanced up from his binoculars and raised an eyebrow at Sam. “That’s my line.”

Sam rolled his eyes and slammed down another mouthful of beer. “I don’t know how you do it, Mike. I’ve been friends with her for five years and she’s still the same picky hot-tempered little firebrain she’s always been.”

Michael stared at the front door of the hostel, waiting for it to open. “Too bad. She likes you, Sam. She almost tore into that nest of drug dealers to get you away from Carmello.”

Sam paused, his eyebrow rising. “Why the hell would she do that?”

Michael’s sudden lack of emotional constipation beguiled and puzzled Sam. “Because, in spite of what Fiona might say, she really does like you. Even when you’re playing the oversharing game. And you both know it. ”

Sam shook his head. “Should’ve seen the way she tore apart Elsa today. Said I should dump her. You think she’s be happy with the perks I’ve been getting the team…”

“You’d think wrong. Fiona’ll blow up anything she can get her hands on,” Michael replied. “Technology makes her happy, but it’s not the be all-do all of her life.”

Sam shook his head, tried to sort out those odd new feelings he had for her. “I’m worried about her.”

Michael’s sudden outburst made Sam jump in alarm. “We’re all worried about her, Sam. She’s been dealing with the aftermath of the pressure Management’s hired guns had on her.”

“I’m not dumb, Mikey.” Jesse had gone into hiding with Mike’s mom, and half the world had gone to hell for a good long while. Life had only recently resettled into its familiar rhythms for them all. “Easy,” Sam said, resting a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “You’ve gotta get rid of this tension. Let me handle some stuff and make a few calls; you keep an eye out for Mister Hot Jock back in the motel.”

Michael leaned back in the seat with a heavy, low sigh. “Right. Thank you, Sam.” 

Sam grinned. “You get me, brother. And that means more than you can ever know.” What the hell was he saying? Sam’s smile remained frozen in place, but the vaguely questioning look in Michael’s eyes provided him with no quick, easy out.

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Right. I’ll owe you one on this.”

“Great. Next time I need a mojito refill, I know who I’m gonna call.” His hand lingered awkwardly on the back of Michael’s neck for another moment before he carefully withdrew it. 

That was an interesting innuendo. Before Sam could pursue it, their quarry made a play for the front door. Moving in concert, Sam and Michael headed for the doorway and quickly pulled their weapons. 

** 

“And then you shot him?”

They were gathered together on Michael’s bed, eating takeout; Fiona lying on her stomach stabbing bits of kung pao chicken on a chopstick, Michael with his head against the backboard, eating steamed dumplings; Sam sitting on the edge with his deep-fried chicken wings. It was a scene they repeated often and shared frequently, one of companionship and good grace that never failed to project a sense of home for all three of them.

“We didn’t have the chance,” Sam replied. “He surrendered. Turns out he had Katya’s keycard and the drugs in his trunk.”

“So he’s a cheater and a thief,” Fiona raised an eyebrow. “Poor Macy has such wonderful taste in men.”

“This is the third guy we’ve investigated for her,” Michael remarked. “Where do you find these girls, Sam?”

“She’s a friend of my ex-SEAL buddy,” he replied. “The guy with the toupee - Dan. She’s actually his friend’s daughter. Dan was married to her mom for awhile.” Sam whistled dramatically. “That chick’s a piece of work.”

“You just have a weakness for sob stories,” Fiona replied, finishing off her chicken and tossing the carton into the trash.

“I have a weakness for pretty girls,” Sam said, waggling his eyebrows. Fiona and Michael shot each other a look over Sam’s shoulder - but the mood, if not the sight, was captured by Sam. They shrugged as Fi rejoined them on the bed. 

“And bottles of booze, Sam,” Michael replied. “Speaking of, you need to get back to Elsa soon. Didn’t you say…”

“…That she just got back from safari,” Sam said. “She was supposed to spend the whole week at the spa, but her flight got cancelled. So tonight she’s got a little Sammy time coming to her.” He cracked his knuckles. “Mike, you mind if I borrow your toothbrush?”

He winced. “You ought to keep one here.”

“Sorry, pal, but you know how Elsa gets when she smells fast food on me.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “How long are you going to let this go on, Sam?”

He grinned. “Til the gravy train rolls off the tracks,” he replied, wincing as she struck him between the eyes with a stick of gum. 

“Polish up,” She teased him. Sam crammed the gum into his mouth and leaned back, chewing happily.

*** 

The door was ajar. That was enough to alarm Sam, and he instinctively grabbed a napkin from his back pocket and pushed his way into the apartment. No blood trail, but no Elsa, and no sign of forced entry. If she was trying to surprise him she’d done too good a job of it. 

“Okay…retrace your steps, Sammy.” He crept about their oversized suite, trying to trace Elsa’s last actions by dropped change, loose drabs of fabric discarded hastily. He saw her cup of wine…and her bottle of sleeping pills beside it.

“Ah crap…” he raced to the tub and, sure enough, there lay Elsa, her chin partially submerged in the pale suds of her bubble bath. Sam tucked his hands under her pits and yanked her up and out of the tub, depositing her on the toilet seat and then lightly slapping her cheeks. “Elsa!” He bellowed directly in her face. “Elsa! We both know I know how to use the stomach pump! I’ll whip it out, I swear!”

Her unfocused blue eyes opened wide and she let out a groan. “Sam…” her hand grabbed his inner thigh and squeezed cruelly. “Who gave you permission to wake me up?”

“Nobody,” he groaned, pulling her up the sloped pale surface, detaching her clawing hand. “You fell asleep in the tub again.”

She glared up at him, puffing out an indignant breath. “I just closed my eyes because you kept me waiting for so long. Don’t worry your pretty head over it.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I had plenty to worry about! You were sucking bath crystals before I got here!”

“Himalayan bath salts,” she replied. “They’re very rare, Sam. You, on the other hand, can be replaced.” She lifted a foot. “Can you give me a rub? And no slacking off or forgetting what you’re doing just because the phone’s ringing!”

He winced. She’d noticed his constant ‘bathroom breaks’ and ‘hold ons’ and had asked him flat out if he had a nose candy problem early in the relationship; he’d been trying to cover for his absences to answer Michael and Fiona’s calls. Grabbing her slippery foot, he started gently massaging her toes. “How was Africa?”

She told him a long, involved story about the beauty of elephants and the lonely vistas of the great boiling-hot plains; Sam listened with one ear, his mind chewing over the possibility of sex, and the promise of dinner. Before long he had looped back to the latest client case, and picked over the evidence as he massaged her instep. Something wasn’t adding up; the paper trail or the amount of cash being thrown around by the man’s mistress. Someone somewhere had to be trying to fake them out, and it was gonna get ugly before he learned which end was up. The idea came to him like a thunderbolt in the darkest of night.

Elsa felt the pressure of the massage slack off and her eyes opened. “Oh no you don’t. Not again…”

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing. Tell me more about the hippos.”

She started going on about the hippos and their mating patterns, and Sam snuck a hand up her thigh, continuing the massage until she forgot what she was saying and her head drooped to lie back against the tub. “Mmm. This is why I keep you around.”

Sam felt a little streak of nausea sweep through him. He may be a whore, but he was an honest whore. Elsa’s words brought home just how deeply he’d sold out by climbing into bed with her. “Speaking of hot mud baths, want me to make up your facial mask? Or are you ready for a little bit of Sammy time?” 

She smirked and grabbed him by the collar, cutting of his words with a kiss.

The sex that followed was skillful but lacked emotional truth. Sam didn’t mind missing out on love with this woman; both of them were old enough to know what they were getting out of such an arrangement. There were orgasms – they were, of course, expected – but afterwards Sam appreciated them as he might a good meal – a sweet memory, soon over in all but memory. Afterwards, he drowsed, his arms around her hips. 

That was when the phone rang. “Elsa, sweetie, baby – you’re beautiful. I owe you something sweet. I’ll make it up to you.” 

She snarled at him. “Sam, there’s a line stretching around the block to be my boytoy…”

“I know,” Sam sighed.

“…And if you want to keep your position, you’ll stay in his bed and stroke my hair until I fall asleep.”

He smirked. “How about this - if you let me go ahead and take care of this as quickly as I can, I’ll give you,” he pulled his pants up and zipped them for emphasis. “My mouth. All night long.”

Elsa sighed. “You and your pretty mouth. Fine – as long as you come back tonight. Mama needs her knock-out pills by midnight sharp or she’ll never be fresh for the stockholders’ meeting tomorrow.” She tossed him a wad of fifties. “Be a good boy and pick up some downers at the ‘mart? They sell them under the name Tuesday Next. Just ask the pharmacist and give them my name.”

Sam’s features twisted as he tried to suppress his anxiety. “Right. I’ll see you later.” Sam pecked her forehead as he donned his shirt and star-sixy-nined Mike. 

Michael picked up immediately. “That’s three rings, Sam. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Well, I was face-deep in Elsa when…”

“…Spare me the details, please. There’s some action happening down by the warehouse. Fi and I have it staked out, but we need your scope.”

Sam groaned as he juggled the keys to his BMW out of his pants pocket. “What? Mikey, doesn’t Fi have a scope?”

“Nope. She had a few problems using it after it melted in that explosion at the wharf. You do remember what happened last week, Sam?”

“Yeah.” Sam groaned, clicking the driver’s side door open and preparing himself for the ride. “My tip, your metal armor and a guy named Guido with vengeance issues.” 

“Right. How soon can you get here?” 

Sam grinned. It was damn fun to work with Mikey, no matter the issue. “Depends on the downtown traffic. Y’know I’ll get there as quick as I can.”

“See you, Sam.”

“You’ve got it, buddy.”

**** 

Sam found Michael and Fiona crouched in the underbrush several yards from the house, in pitch-black clothes a mime would envy. He smirked and joined them in the underbrush, lamenting the ruination of his brand-new black silk pants. “We got Mister Faithful in our sights?”

Michael held up his binoculars and let Sam peer through them. “Yep. And he’s brought some powdery friends with him.”

“He really is smuggling drugs?” Michael nodded. “I’ll be damned,” Sam replied. “She was right.” 

“But now we need to know how deeply he’s in,” Michael replied.

“He’s dealing drugs to children and married to two women at the same time,” Fiona scoffed. “I know everything I need to know.”

“I’m not gonna risk it, Fi,” he said, grasping her upper arm. “Not with you…”

She cringed and pried Michael’s hand from her upper arm. “What a fine way to tell Sam. I wanted it to be special – candles and wine…for him…”

“Tell me what?” Sam blurted out, but they were cut off by the loud, staccato sound of guns blasting in the background. Fiona picked off two of the soldiers before Sam used his scope to beat down three more and Michael emptied his Glock into a third. Then Sam pulled out his phone and put on a ‘concerned citizen’ act and managed to get the cops out without further problems. Their client’s ex went down on coke charges, and naturally she sued him for divorce – along with his first wife.

Sam knew what Mike and Fi were planning on telling him when they had their celebratory dinner at Carlitos that night. Fiona was drinking mineral water, for Christ’s sake. 

“Don’t make me help you paint the nursery.” 

“Sam…”

“Kidding, brother.” He grinned at them both. “I’ll do anything you need me to – just ask.” He sat back. “So…when’s the wedding?”

They exchanged another set of looks. “We’re not having one yet,” Fiona declared.

“It’s complicated,” Michael added. “Can I talk to you alone, Sam?”

“Sure,” he said, tapping their waitress on the shoulder. “One round for the house, Mary! The whole place is drinking on Sam Axe’s dime tonight!” 

Then he trailed Michael to the bar, where he was already having Mary apply the twelve or so beers Sam had bought to his account. “Lay it on me, man,” Sam said.

Michael took a deep breath. “You know what we do is dangerous…”

“Right…”

“…And you understand that I might die at any minute…”

Sam’s features drew downward. “Hey, don’t talk like that. You’re both gonna outlive me by a hundred years.”

Michael’s features tensed. “We both know we can’t count on maybes, Sam. Death has a way of grabbing you by the throat and taking you out in this business when you least expect it.”

Sam’s return grin was wan. “Those’re the breaks. But we both know that.”

“Right. I’m trying to ask you to look out for Fi if anything happens to me.” 

Sam nodded his head briefly. “You got it, Mikey. I’d do anything for you, even spend the rest of my life watching over that stuck-up little Irish potato.”

Michael grinned and grabbed Sam’s head. “Thanks.”

“Thank you.” Sam held onto Michael’s hand for just a skosh too long, and their eyes lingered. Coughing, they pulled quickly apart. “Uh, right….”

“Okay. I guess you have to get back to Elsa.”

Sam grinned. He did have to go, but wasn’t looking forward to heading back to Elsa’s place. “I could take another ten minutes. She won’t miss me as long as I bring her back her pills.”

“She sounds like a prize, Sam,” he remarked. 

“Oh, we get along. She’s got great taste in guys, and I’ve got great taste in booze.” He sounded bitter, and for the first time Sam couldn’t comprehend just why he felt that way. He did, after all, have nearly everything a man could need or want. What more could he ever ask for? 

“As long as you’re having fun,” Michael replied idly.

“I’m her boytoy, and she’s my Elsa-bear,” he replied, smirking. “That’s the way it works with us. We wouldn’t wade into shark-stuffed oceans to save each other, but what we’ve got is pretty solid.”

“You would,” Michael replied, smirking. “I know you, Sam – and without a doubt, you’d run into a burning building to save a woman.”

 

Great. Now things with Mike were getting twisted. Yet he wasn’t sorry. Just to make sure Michael wasn’t uncomfortable, he tone took on a sarcastic ring. “You’re a guy after my own heart, Mikey.”

Michael snickered. “Time for you to go home.” 

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. But as he watched Michael go back to Fiona, an unfamiliar ache lingered in his gut. Whatever he called Elsa’s place, he never, even in his mental wanderings or fondest thoughts, called it ‘home’. 

*** 

He got back to Elsa’s penthouse sometime after midnight, complete with her bottle of downers, and found her sitting at the center of her bed, her eyes closed and her legs crossed; she was meditating deeply. He crept to the bed with the white paper bag of brown bottles filled with round, red pills. 

One eye popped open. “You’re back.”

“I’m back,” Sam declared, unbuttoning his shirt. His plans for seduction had gone so far awry that it seemed farcical to keep up the gigolo façade. 

She ripped open the bag and started counting out her pills, spilling them onto the covers. Two reds and a green would knock her out; Sam noted she took the correct amount before rolling his neck, wincing at his old war wounds – the shirts and pants were carefully tossed down the laundry chute, his underwear joining them, before he returned in a robe and slippers.

Elsa watched him with mild interest, the pills starting to kick in and give her expression an unusually hazy look. Sam took a good look at the woman now – once, he knew, she had been both gorgeous and accomplished; a raconteur of the highest order, a fashion designer whose husband had fed her business with proceeds from the hotel’s till. She’d become a no-nonsense, hard-nosed negotiator who ran the hotel with a thorough, intense focus; Sam had been initially impressed by the stories his friends told him about her prowess in the boardroom. Later on – after having taken her gifts gladly – he’d learned that she was still mourning her husband, and threw around his money as a way to appease her general loneliness. All of the negative side-effects; the drugs, the spiritual emptiness, the globetrotting; she used all of these things to fill the hole hubby had left behind by croaking. 

Sam rolled over and stretched out beside Elsa, and she rolled toward him, resting her head on his shoulders. Tenderness filled him; for just a second he felt sorry for this tough, boozy, wild little chick.

Then she took one long, audible sniff of his cologne. “Tomorrow, I’m buying you a new scent. “

“Huh?”

“You smell like a junior varsity locker room, and it’s unbecoming of a gentleman of high society.”

He popped an eye open. “I’ve been an Old Spice guy since I was a freshman …”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need you to repeat that odious story about your freshman year. You’re changing scents, and that’s the end of this argument.”

“Okay,” Sam sighed. He rolled onto his back and shaded his eyes from the low overhead lighting. Fiona and Michael – happy, content, with that odd hunger in their eyes – swam to the surface of his consciousness again. He let them lull him to sleep in his mind’s eye. For a man who never regretted his choices, Sam was starting to wonder if he’d taken a hard left turn into stupidity with this latest affair. 

*** 

The following day, he flopped down on his seat at their usual table at Carlitos, smelling of Gloria Vanderbilt for Men and wearing a well-knit red polo shirt and tailored jeans. Fiona eyeballed him over a slice of wheat toast. 

“How very fancy,” she remarked. 

Sam shrugged. “The ol’ ball and chain wanted me to mix it up a little. What do you guys think?” he wondered. 

“You look super,” Michael remarked lightly, turning over a page in their latest case file.

“Mmm. Absolutely keen,” Fiona smirked.

Sam narrowed his eyes. “I know when you’re humoring me. What’s wrong?”

“You look smashing,” Fi replied. “It’s just not something I’d picture you wearing.”

“You picture me wearing things?” he smirked.

She gave him an exaggerated wink and bit into the toast, all while Michael eyed them from the sidelines. 

“Are we ready to do business, guys?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sam replied. 

Michael spread the file open and pushed it toward Sam. “So, your research says her name is Brooke.”

Sam picked up his beer and started talking. “Yep, Mike; she’s twenty, a flight attendant and makes a hell of a cutty sark. I knew her through her mom, and I knew her mom through…” He made a series of marginally crude gestures. “We put the hammer down a couple of times, and then…”

“Please spare us,” Fi groaned. 

“When has he ever done that?” Michael replied. 

“Things have changed,” she replied, putting a hand on her stomach. “And little ears hear everything,” she added. 

Sam laughed. “Honey, your little sprout isn’t old enough to have ears…I think.” He hoped.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re already a terrible influence, and the poor little one’s barely two months old!” 

Sam grinned. “And I’m gonna stay that way. I’m hereby claiming all fishing and cocktail making lesson privileges,” he declared. 

Michael tipped his glasses toward Sam. “You’re welcome to them.” Michael was not the fishing sort, and Fiona would rather bate an enemy than bait a hook. Sam felt a thrill of surprise at their acquiescence. He’d never considered the possibility of having kids of his very own – had actively avoided it in his knockabout, loosely-lived and occasionally balls-to-the-wall life. He’d been everywhere, had a hell of a lot of memories, but had flunked the domesticity test that had been set out for him by Amanda. He’d ended up living out of a suitcase, most of his stuff in cold storage all over the city; a piece here, another piece there. He’d gotten used to, if not good at, pretending he didn’t want anything deeper.

But seeing Mike and Fi together, obviously in love, trying to make a family now with what little they could scrape together got him right in the gut. And he couldn’t figure out why it hurt, only that it did.

*** 

It was mid-afternoon by the time Sam returned to the hotel for his nap. Flopping onto the bed, he didn’t bother to remove his clothing or shoes before rolling onto his belly and dropping off into a dead sleep. 

He woke up ten minutes later to the sensation of someone poking him right in the middle of the back. Rolling over, he saw Elsa staring down at him, her nose crusted with white powder and her hand-held mirror clutched in her fist. 

“Hide my jewelry,” she demanded, “the Venusians are invading!” 

*** 

Michael’s phone rang three long times before he picked up. “Just a little busy, Sam,” Michael replied, and Sam heard a bullet ping somewhere nearby. 

“Are you pinned down somewhere?” 

“Yes, but we can handle it.” More gunfire, and a wicked laugh. Two seconds later, a percussive explosion, followed by a loud cough and the sound of someone walking. “You were saying, Sam?”

“I was wondering if I could hang out at your place tonight,” Sam asked quickly.

“Uhhh….” The sound on Sam’s end was briefly muffled, and the sound of a conversation quickly taking place. Michael’s voice returned, crisp and quick. “All right, if you stay up in the loft.” 

“Fine,” Sam said. “I’ve gotta get away from Elsa for the night; she’s on a tear – I think she got her hands on some bad stuff. Had to call her doc after she tried to tranc dart me.” 

“Trancs?” 

“She thought I was an elephant, Mike.” 

Michael was completely silent for a minute. Then he said, “Take the Cadillac down to the loft. We’ll talk later.”

“Gotcha, Mike,” Sam replied, quickly hanging up the phone and snagging a change of clothes.

*** 

He arrived late. Fiona was already curled up in bed, a sight that surprised Sam , as he’d never known her to be lazy, to so much as close her eyes before twelve at night. Then again, he’d never spent time with a pregnant woman before.

“That’s apparently part of it,” Michael had explained. “I took her to an ob-gyn my mom knows this morning and he put her on vitamins. Apparently she’s supposed to eat and sleep while she can.”

Sam pretended to mull over Michael’s words. “Sleeps a lot, craves weird things. So knocking up Fi turned her into Garfield?” 

“Ha ha,” Michal responded lightly. They left the pile of clothing where it had been and walked downstairs. “So - tranc darts, Sam?”

“Yeah. Someone gave her some coke down by the pool.” He shook his head and tossed another teeshirt into the loose pile he’d mounted beside the couch before following Michael down to the kitchenette. “She loved hard, man. Elsa just can’t let go of the first Mister Lancaster, and it’s making things between us downright spooky.”

They headed down to the kitchen for a round of cold roast beef sandwiches and beer.  
“Spooky?”

“She’s called me ‘George’ a couple of times while we were,” he made a crude gesture and Michael’s eyebrows went up. “She was riding my baloney pony and calling me by the wrong name!”

“Sam…”

“…A guy’s got his pride, Mike…”

“Sam!” 

“Hey, I’ve gotta rep to maintain,” he complained. “I know what I’m doing around dames! I’ve been doing it forever…”

“…Literally,” remarked Fiona, with a fond roll of her eyes.

“Whatever,” Sam laughed. “But I’ve been around the block. Elsa’s finally starting to spook me out – never met a chick like her.”

“Then break up with her.”

“No way! She’s gotten us into some of the finest digs in this town. If we lose her as a contact, we’ll be losing a major asset.” 

“We did well before we had her.” He glanced over at Fiona as she moved drowsily in the sheets.

“Yeah. But,” Sam said, “before her I didn’t have custom-tailored suits and four guys at the Ritz who’ll call me Sir for free.”

“As long as it’s worth it for you, Sam.” Michael’s tone of voice suggested that he didn’t think it was. 

“I know what I’m doing, brother,” Sam insisted, resting a hand against the back of Michael’s neck. “I’m all grown up.”

“I know, Sam.”

“Then lemme make my own choices,” he replied, taking another sip of beer. “I won’t do anything crazy. Promise. “

“You’re not the crazy one in this relationship,” Michael replied. “I’m more worried about Elsa forgetting who she’s with or where she is than you deciding to leave town.”

Sam grinned. “Got that much faith in me, Mikey?”

His grip tightened on Sam’s wrist. “Always, Sam.”

“What about you? Adjusting to the ol’ nine-to-five?”

Michael laughed. “It’s not technically a nine-to-five gig, but it’s as close to a desk job as I’ll ever get. You can still make the people happy and serve your country. It’s a good life.”

“You’re happy,” Sam muttered. He’d never seen Michael quite this pleased before with his lot in life.

Michael nodded. “Fiona and you and I have fought and scratched for this,” he said, gesturing to the recently re-decorated loft, meaning the general stability of their lives. “Max and I’ve built up a solid base, and now the three of us can do what we’re good at. I have my honor, back, Sam. It’s a damn good feeling.”

“So playing Robin Hood suits you?” Sam asked.

“Robin Hoods with a purpose,” Michael replied. “We save people, Sam. It’s what we’ve got a knack for.”

Another long beat. The voice that broke the haze between them was not their own. 

Her head popped up, and she peered at them both with foggy curiosity. “Michael? What’re you doing there? Come to bed.” 

Sam gently pushed Michael in the direction of his girlfriend. “Go to your girl,” he instructed. “I’ll be fine.”

“You will, Sam.”

He knew that, but watching them together made him wonder if he really would be.

***

Sam had a long, ridiculously complex nightmare that night. It involved endless corridors filled with beautiful women who bore glasses of beer and eager smiles. Whenever he followed one through a door they promptly disappeared, and he was left alone standing in the middle of an endless, impenetrable fog of blackness. 

He woke up tangled in the sheets to the tune of someone moaning downstairs. He popped an eye open and scanned the floor from his decidedly unadvantageous position on the fold-out couch. Down below on the fold out bed, he could see Fiona straddling Michael’s lap, and hear her moaning out her pleasure and relief. Sam closed his eyes and groaned sympathetically. 

“Ouch.”

“Too much?”

The sheets rustled and bodies turned. “If it hurts me, it might hurt the baby.”

“Good point. How about this?”

“Mmm…Michael, we shouldn’t. Sam’s right upstairs and we …”

Michael’s voice held a note of wry knowledge. “Sam knows what we’re doing.”

“I know but…I do feel so bad for him. Living with that psychopathic rhinoceros just to get us that tech intel.”

“Fi, did I hear you right? Did you just say you feel bad for Sam Axe?”

She shifted and laughed. “Yes. I suppose it’s the hormones.”

Sam laughed into his fist. It was strange to sit outside of the party, being an accessory to their happy time. 

“I thought you hated him.”

“Oh come off it. You know I have a fondness for the old bastard. And, well…” a rhythmic creaking started, “Sam can be stubborn. And a lush. But he’s mmm…so loyal. And good to us in his way…”

“Uh huh…always…”

“I worried about him,” she confessed. “For quite a while I thought he would be dying at Carmello’s hands. I was ready to kill in his name. Mmm…the blood everywhere, Michael…”

“Uh…Fi…”

“…And the smell of gunpowder on my hands….and Sam at my feet…and he’d be so grateful…” ThudCreak.

Michael paused and the mattress thumped the wall. “You’re trying to wake him up.”

“Not tonight…I think I have a headache.”

“…You don’t…feel hurt…”

“Mmm…you’re giving me a twat-ache…..Oh, that’s better.” The creaking grew more pronounced. “Love you,” she murmured.

“I love you…OW Fiona, nails!”

“Don’t be a child, Michael…Mmmm, move that way….yes, that way…please Michael…please…”

“Fi…”

“Michael!”

Sam plugged his ears and stifled a groan. It was plenty weird enough that he had a hard on from listening to his best friend boff his best girl; now he was imagining what it would be like to lie between them, to have all of that intensity focused on him. The idea had him throbbing, his hand following the rhythm of the bedsprings’ creaking. Harder and sharper and faster, quick tugs that matched perfectly the cadence of the rapid movements of their hips.

“Fi,” he muttered, “Mike…”

“Michael!” Fiona called in the distance, but as Sam filled his palm he transformed the sensation his own hand produced into the stroke of a soft, lacquered hand and a rugged, knowing fist. Selfishly, primitively, he throbbed alone in the darkness.

When he came back to earth, all was silent in the loft. Sam covered his eyes and closed them until he couldn’t see the low, neon glare of the club outside the window. He rolled carefully over.

The universe was intent on transforming Sam into a pervert.

He vowed to wash his underwear and pretend the past few hours had never happened.

*** 

Months passed by, and Sam enjoyed his days for the most part. Life with Elsa was a total rollercoaster, but he accepted her wildness as a facet of her personality, even if she occasionally held a gun to his balls during a blowjob or made him call her Lady Princess Mcfly when she was high on acid.

The cases were the same lot that the group of them had always been confronted with, and Sam adored helping them all out – he’d decided long ago that if they gave him enough beer and enough respect he’d always be glad to help out on jobs. When he wasn’t tanning, napping or watching soap operas.

Sam was very close to having everything he’d always wanted in a retirement. A pretty girl, regular sex, money, excitement, booze and cash. And yet something nagged him, burrowing under his skin like a tick and slurping at the marrow of his happiness. It couldn’t be that Elsa was that annoying – could it? He’d put up with worse chicks before – scarier chicks – for all of the complaining he’d given Mike and Fi. Once he’d dated this Russian assassin who had tried to cut his balls off during every single sexual encounter they had.

But the tension festered instead of dissipating, creating a never-ending bond of curiosity between himself and Michael and Fiona. The months passed by as Fiona’s stomach expanded, and Sam saw every flicker of joy that passed between his friends. And when they hugged him, or smiled at him, he felt happier. It was childishly naive to feel this way; it turned him back into a teenager – it made him feel disconcertingly new and disconcertingly delicate.

Even at fifty – with so many marriages under his belt, and so many relationships gone and dead - he’d never quite felt this way before. 

It took time for the situation to for the situation to come to a head. That summer Fi was six months along and she was cranky in the heat; Sam ferried her frozen ice and thick meals of hearty porridge and beef stews while they chipped away at varying cases. One afternoon they were crammed together in Fi’s blue Hyundai, Fiona with her binoculars pressed to the bridge of her nose. “I think our money launderer is trying to get his girlfriend in trouble,” she observed lightly.

“I don’t know,” Sam declared, chewing his fried clams. “He could be planting that case of heroin as a cozy little reunion gift.” 

Fiona cringed. “That’s the sort of thing you’d get Elsa. How is your little ball and chain?”

Sam turned toward Fi and gestured to his shirt, “D’I get any grease stains on it?”

Fiona glowered at him. “That woman is ruining you.”

“Ruining me?” He laughed. “No woman will ever ruin Sam Axe!” He frowned. “Seriously, how do I look?” 

“Fine,” Fiona said, her voice clipped. “Uncommonly fine.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“The only good thing that woman’s done for you is improve your wardrobe.”

“You told me that before.”

She gave him an arch look. “Pregnancy hormones,” she declared, “do terrible things to a woman’s mind, Sam. Surely you understand that.” 

“Riiight.” He eyed Fiona for a while, worrying she might explode into a fountain. She did nothing but roll her eyes and cock her gun – and then place a hand upon her belly.

“Woah,” Sam said, holding out his palm. “y’okay?”

She nodded and pressed her open palm to the rounded top of her stomach. Sam’s eyes grew wide and nearly frantic with her silence. She smiled and grabbed his free hand, pressing it to her belly. “Feel,” she demanded, as if emotions were some sort of foreign dialogue to Sam. He could, indeed, feel – the regular thrumming of someone small under Fiona’s ribs, rolling about in a little semi-circle kicking softly away, trying to find purchase.

“She’s begun rolling,” Fiona explains. “It’s the queerest feeling.”

Sam stared blankly at her stomach. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Uh…this isn’t weird for you, right?”

“It would be weird if I’d have shot you,” she declared tartly.

Sam stared blankly at his hand. Beneath his palm the child rolled and rolled, and Fi sucked in her breath. “Sometimes she presses against my lung,” Fi explained. “The doctor said it’s completely natural.”

“He’s got a weird idea of what’s right,” Sam noted. But the baby rolled and rolled, and finally settled under his hand. It was odd, touching a part of his best friend and the woman he’d come to admire, touching them both at the same time. He sat there with his heavy hand pressed to Fiona’s stomach, making no further motion. “Are you guys ready for this?”

She shrugged. “We thought we’d let him run about without nappies for the first year, then if he’s good we’ll let him suck on a HK.” She rolled her eyes extravagantly at Sam’s horrified expression. “We’ve never been about children of our own, but I am determined to manage.”

Sam chuckled. “Right – ‘cause ya got no other choice,” he declared. With a fond grin, he added, “good thing I’ll be around to teach him.”

“Yes, she’d be otherwise deficient in the chugalug contest and pickup artist departments.” 

He laughed, shook his head. “I’ll also teach him how to fire a long-range rifle, and how to punch a guy out without bruising his knuckles. And I’ll even help him pick out his first tux.”

“That seems like something Michael would want to do,” she replied. “And SHE will need someone to teach her how to make C4 from salvaged plastic.”

“Well, sometimes Mikey won’t be here – he’ll be running around his fancy pants superspy stuff, and he’ll need somebody to look out for him.” He grinned. “I’m the Godfather, right?”

She sighs. “Well, Sean would demand the rights if he were in the States. But I can’t be naming her by proxy, can I?”

“C’mon, Fi…”

She sighed. “Must you be a child, Sam? I was going to say yes.”

“Yeah, well, say it a little louder.”

She reached out for his chin and held it tight and still. “You’re his or her godfather, Sam. I promise you, no matter what happens, you will be.”

Sam looked into Fiona’s happy, glowing eyes. Without even sparing another thought for what he was doing, he took her chin in his palm and reached over, kissing her. She didn’t resist – not for a moment. He felt a thin arm loop around his neck and a small tongue poking its way between his lips. He moaned softly into her mouth, caressing her tongue with his. Minutes later guilt crashed in on Sam, and he gently disengaged himself from Fi’s touch.

“We’ve gotta stop,” he begged. 

She nodded, rubbing her flushed cheeks. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She eyed him. “I suspect that you do.”

“Hey, sister, I didn’t mean to kiss you!” Fiona huffed and rolled her eyes. “I was moved by what I was feeling under my hand – that’s all.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah! It’s the miracle of life! That’s worth getting excited over!”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Sam.” She looked at his lips. “Was I better than little Miss Priss?”

“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “You were.”

And it disturbed him far more than it should have, the heavy weight of knowledge that pressed down upon his chest. He took a moment to stare out the window at their target but he – like Sam’s thoughts – had scattered and was gone. 

*** 

He didn’t think about it again until he and Michael were stuck in close quarters, trying to shoot down yet another target. Sam winged him, Michael got the drop – they were wiping blood off their hands and trying to talk the guy into joining up on their merry little mission to the heart of alligator country. They shared a hose and a back yard of spare tires and rusted-out hulks of cars. 

“Uh Mike…I know I’ve been acting kinda weird lately.” He shoved his wet hands into the pockets of his jeans and regretted the harsh friction that abraded his entire palm.

“Not any weirder than you normally are,” Michael declared. Sam shook his head. 

“It’s time I yanked my head out of my ass,” he said. “I’ve been letting down Elsa, letting you guys down, too. No more, Mikey, you mark my words on that one!” 

“Right..” Michael said, smirking over the top of the hose. “I think you’re getting a little too intense there, Sam.”

“Only ‘cause I like you so much.” 

“I know.” Abruptly, he leaned over hissed, “And I know how much you like Fi.”

Sam was stunned by Michael’s sudden confession. Fear filled Sam – Fi had told him, the little Irish witch! He bit the inside of his cheek and said, “business first, right?”

“Right.” Michael turned back toward their mark and shouted very loudly in a very precise Russian accent for him to gather himself and disappear. Soon they had his keycard and his willing help in their little project. 

At Carlitos later that day, Sam waited for Fi to get up to powder her nose – then he turned toward Michael and offered him the right side of his face, trying to avoid catching his fellow patron’s wary looks. “Let me have it, Mike,” he declared. “I deserve everything you wanna lay on me. So go ahead – I can take it – just sock me right in the mush.”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip, expecting a sharp blow that never came. When he opened his eyes Michael stared at him over the top of his water, one eyebrow up. “Why would I fight you over something you obviously both want?”

“Did I wake up in la-la land?” Sam gaped, his eyes widening. Was his best friend giving him quasi-permission to make out with his girlfriend? 

“I trust you with Fiona, Sam. I thought the…” Michael fumbled for the correct word here - something that Sam knew was difficult, due to Michael’s emotional constipation. “…Friendship we have would take care of any questions you might have in regard to that.” 

“Yeah, but…I kissed her. In front of the clients and a box of Krispy Kremes!” he said dramatically. 

“And I don’t mind. I’m not the kind of man who enjoys sharing love…”

“…and now you sound like a hippie,” Sam replied.

“…The only reason you’re not a dead man is because you mean a great deal to me.” He said. “You’re special, Sam.” Then, with a touch of sarcasm, he repeated, “very special.”

Sam couldn’t think of a reason why Michael was suddenly being so laudatory. Then he leaned in once again, his steamy breath caressing Sam’s neck. “Remember what you said when you rescued me from those drug lords?”

“Yeah – I said I do anything for you. Anything you ever wanted.”

Michael smirked at him. “Anything, Sam? Are you really sure?”

“Uh…You won’t ask me to bend a horse over or something, right?” 

“That’s sick even for you,” Fiona declared, which pushed Michael back to his original position. She returned to her seat and let out a sigh as she settled down. “He’s having a fist-fight with my bladder.” 

Sam sarcastically placed a palm upon her belly. “Give ‘er another roundhouse right to the kidney, kiddo!”

“Oh, stop!” she demanded, but the baby promptly rolled over, mooning them both in a single wriggle of motion. “You’re being incorrigible!” 

Sam could feel how incorrigible the kid was being. Kick, kick, kick, resonated the tiny foot under his hand. He smirked and rubbed Fi’s stomach, and they shared a warm, awkward laugh. Sam reached out and grabbed Michaels’ hand. “Feel that, Mike?” 

The three of them held Michael’s palm flat against Fiona’s stomach. “Yep,” Michael said. “It feels like you have a marching band in there.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t inspire Sam to even greater folly,” she requested plaintively. 

“A tin drummer,” Michael offered. 

“Two soldiers on a trampoline,” Sam suggested. “Bouncing up and down.”

“Taking turns,” Sam said, holding Michael’s fingers.

They sat absolutely still together, feeling the ocean breeze and feeling the thick rhythm of each other’s pulse. “Wow…” Sam muttered. They held onto each other, hand in hand, stunned by the quiet camaraderie. 

“Would you boys please back off?” Fi finally requested, smirking wryly, “I would dearly love to have more space of my own for the wee one to breathe.”

Sam backed off, but Michael held onto his hand for a moment before finally letting go. “Okay, guys,” Michael said, suddenly his typical, formal self again. “What’re we having?”

**** 

Sam came in late that night, having been waylaid by Mike and Fi, and the first noise that greeted him was the sound of a china plate crashing at full force into a marble fireplace. He ducked to avoid the flying debris, reaching out to catch a mug as it flew by. 

“What in the hell?” He saw Elsa wearing a dark green algae facial mask, throwing dishes at full-force, her face twisted into a scowl. Sam grabbed her hand and carefully held it still. “Heyy, easy there,” he demanded, holding her still with his hard, demanding grip. 

She glared at him, looming over Sam like an unfriendly spirit. “Do you know how late you are?”

He gave her back a wan smirk. “Lunch ran long,” he explained, “I had to try and help Mikey with a problem.”

“It’s always MICHAEL this and MICHAEL that,” she pouted, her lips turning down into a childish grimace. “Why do you always have to pay attention to Michael?! What’s wrong with me?! Am I chopped liver huh?” She pulled off her top and pointed at her chest. “What’s wrong with these dinners, man?”

“Uh….” Sam stared at her chest stupidly. Nice tits, and he’d felt them up many a time, but geez, did she have to be so blunt? “Look, sweetheart, I think you need to lie down for a few hours. Or a few centuries.” 

She stared up at him. “I know something’s going on, Sam. You can’t hide it from me! I’ll find out somehow!” 

Sam gently hauled her to bed. “I’m just the same mild-mannered Sammy. I used to be a SEAL, and now I’m a retiree living off my pension just like every other guy in Florida,” he replied. Kissing her forehead, he added, “and you’re the bravest, smartest girl in all of Florida.”

“The very bravest?” she asked pathetically.

“The bravest and the luckiest,” he concluded, pulling her expensive silk sheets up to her chin. “Go to bed, honey.” 

Screwing up her eyes, she managed to drift off. Sam sat awake, staring at the refuse, the trashed room, and wondered how he’d managed to get through the day. And if all of those belly rubs and hundred thousand dollar watches were really worth it.

***

The following day, Michael handed over a black sheet of paper along with the paperwork for the case file they’d been working on. “I’ve got a few loose leads,” he declared. “But nothing as concrete as this.”

Sam stared at the sonogram in his fist. “He’s got your eyes.”

Michael shrugged. “Probably Fiona’s innate wireclipping abilities, too.” He straightened the papers and sat back, pushing back his sunglasses. “That’s your first picture of your godchild, Sam. How do you feel about it?

“Sore,” he replied lightly. “But that’s from Elsa going psycho again last night.”

“You’ve got to start talking to her doctor,” Michael suggested. “I think her peyote dependency’s starting to get a little out of hand.”

“Trust me on this one, brother – I’ve been with a lot of chicks. A LOTTA chicks….”

Michael watched him with an eyebrow raised, waiting for him to finish talking.

“…You’ve gotta talk down the crazy ones,” Sam declared. “As long as I’ve got my silver tongue she’ll be staying put. Never piss a lady off when you’ve got ‘em eating out of your hand.”

“Right, Sam,” Michael declared. “Well, you know who’s got a sofa for you when things go crooked again.”

Sam thought of the last time he’d shared Mike and Fi’s couch and forced himself to grin, biting back the memories of passion. “Not gonna happen again. I promise.”

Michael actually looked somewhat disappointed, but turned back toward the files. “If you need backup you know who to call.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.” 

*** 

He woke up that morning with something very cool pressed to his temple. It felt so nice that, for just a second, he leaned up into the coolness of it, the overheated pillow baking his neck and clouding his judgment. Then he heard a very distinctive clicking sound right by his temple. 

Eyes flying wide open, Sam gaped up at the blond woman kneeling beside him. “Elsa, I…”

“Quiet,” she growled, in a Russian accent that was Natasha Badenoff-thick. She tapped Sam’s temple with the muzzle again, and then asked, “Where did you put the Smiths?”

Sam’s voice crackled as he forced out a fake laugh. “I dunno what you’re talking about, sweetness. You’ve gotta lie down.”

Her eyes were cobalt, direct, steady. “Under the bed.” She shoved him off the mattress, rolled it, and pulled out one of his guns; the spare one, which he’d called his ‘baby’ in front of her once or twice. She checked it for bullets and pointed the gun right in his face. “Get on your knees.”

“Ha hah,” Sam laughed, holding up his hands. “Kinky.”

The boot she gave him to the jaw was a big hint that they weren’t engaging in foreplay. “Gotcha,” he said, holding up his hands. “Shooting an unarmed man’s against the Geneva Conventions, Cookie, so…”

Another boot, this time to the opposite side of his head. “No law can stop me tonight, Sam,” she declared flatly. “It’s time for you to meet your destiny.”

“It’s gotta be your meds…the doctors…damn it, Elsa.”

“MY NAME IS OLGA,” she shouted. “Think, Sam – remember the name? Remember a sweet girl named Patricia?” She struck him with the gun once more, knocking his head hard against the wall. This time she drew blood as he bit his tongue, and it flooded his mouth.

Sam desperately searched his memory banks for a ‘Patricia’ he pissed off. It came back to him in a sickening flood. The Ukraine. …frozen steppes…an idealistic face…Oh God…. “Y’gotta believe me,” he gasped out through his sliced bottom lip. “Everything that happened to Patty wasn’t my fault…”

“I do not care!” she shouted. “Her blood is on your hands! And now your blood will be on mine.”

“No, no – it wasn’t like that, please don’t….” He considered tackling her before she rendered him unconscious once more with a quick blow to the head.

*** 

Sam came to in the back of a van, the side of his head knocking into the inside of the cab. He popped open one eye and stared at the back of the driving woman’s head.

A large, dark-suited man had a gun trained on him; another was eyeing him in the rear view mirror. Elsa stared him down.

“Don’t suppose there’s a way we could talk this over?”

She stared at him coldly. “Talk is for fools,” she declared. “What you’ve done is not something that might be cured with a simple pat to the head. You destroyed my sister’s life!”

Sam shook his head and regretted the wave of dizziness that overcame him. He rested it against the cool glass of the windowpane. “Everything Patricia did, she did willingly. I didn’t force her to do anything she didn’t ask me to do. She was a swell girl, and the way she went out was a damn shame, but I…”

She glared at him. “Someone with a red shirt slit my sister’s throat. A very tall man with large hands and dark hair, who knew her well enough to lead her to a wharf without her suspecting a thing.” She slammed her palm into the dashboard. “You killed her for information she would have given willingly!”

“I didn’t touch a hair on her head! You gotta believe me,” he said. “I tried to give her somewhere to run when things went sideways. She was scared for her life til she hooked up with me...”

“SHE HAS NO LIFE!” shouted Olga. “She lived for you!”

Sam stared bleakly ahead of him as she pulled the car through a thicket of vines and underbrush. Everything was bright green and dark brown as two tall, plainclothed men – her obviously hired muscle yanked Sam out by his collar and threw him to the ground.

This was how he would die. The realization came upon him with a wave of disappointment and nausea. He’d wanted to do so much more with his life; now it would be over, wasted in one quick flash of rope, cuffs and pain. 

“Shooting him is too easy,” she declared. “There are plenty of empty trees – let him find his perch among them!”

Sam prepared himself silently as she grabbed a length of clothesline rope from the car. Her goon punched him once in the head to keep him still. Kneeling on the chilled ground, Sam considered running, but which way would be easier – bleeding out on the ground or a neat, quick snap of the neck? He picked ‘snap of the neck’. 

The noose wrapped itself around the heft of a thick willow branch, and Elsa pressed her lips to his cheek as her goon hoisted Sam high. They secured the other side of the noose as quickly and efficiently as possible, the goon holding Sam high and aloft as Olga secured the rope about his neck.

“An eye for an eye,” she whispered, kissing him and instructing her goon to let Sam go. “You were worth the years I spent perfecting this face – the odious men I spent favors upon. It will be 

The rope tightened, choking Sam’s air supply off. A thousand things flashed before his eyes….A childhood…a first kiss….first love…graduating from West Point…the even deserts of Iraq…Venezuela…The look on Fi’s face as she held his hand to her stomach….Michael’s too-rare grin…these are the images he wanted playing on the insides of his eyelids as he lost his battle with survival, and the ones he clung to as darkness fluttered over him.

Suddenly everything gave and Sam pitched forward onto the ground, gagging, holding his neck. He turned a teary eye upward.

Mike. Holding the torn end of a rope. 

“How the hell did you….”

Michael stuffed his sunglasses into the front pocket of his tee-shirt and handed Sam one of his guns. “We’ll talk about it later. Now we’re gonna finish the job.” 

He grinned. “That’s why you’re at the top of my list, brother.” His eyes widened. “Where’s Fi?”

An implosion answered his question; the scream of Olga as her car imploded, followed by a rapid burst of automatic gunfire. “We’re missing all the fun,” Michael pointed out, cocking his gun. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” 

Michael suddenly reached out and grabbed Sam by the chin. His look was so intense that Sam forgot to breathe. 

His kiss was sudden, brief, and the most intense that Sam could ever recall. 

“Don’t do that again,” Michael requested against his lips.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly, running a hand over his hair. “I don’t think our budget for bullets is big enough.”

Another scream, and Fi’s sadistic laugh, drew them back into the fray.

*** 

A few hours later, Sam stood by the car, mourning in his own way. He and Mike had dug shallow graves for Olga and her minion while Fi played with her nails and silently gloated about her kills.

She approached him first. “It’s all right, Sam,” she said, tone gently mocking, “there will be other cars.”

“Give a guy a chance to grieve,” he teased. “I loved her, y’know. Elsa.” Her bemusement made him add, “before I found out she was psychotic.” Fiona wrapped her skinny arm around his shoulder. “So how did you and Mike find me?”

“Women’s intuition,” she replied. “You didn’t show up to Carlitos this morning – after you didn’t answer your phones we had a feeling Elsa had snapped.” She frowned. “Pity she couldn’t even have a breakdown originally.” 

He opened his mouth to correct Fi, but decided to let it go. The past had died today – the future was standing beside him in a maternity dress. “Too bad,” he agreed.

“Sam?” 

“Mmm?”

She grabbed him by the shirt front. “Never do that again,” she demanded, kissing Sam’s open mouth. He tried to jerk away, but a pregnant Fiona was still a strong Fiona, and she pinned him fiercely to her mouth.

By the time he’d struggled free, Michael had emerged from the jungle and was staring at them silently.

“Mikey,” Sam blurted out, “before you try to kill us, you’ve gotta know…she came onto me.” Fi elbowed him in the ribs, rolling her eyes.

Michael raised an eyebrow and stared at Fi. “I thought we were going to do this together.”

“I’m not a patient sort of gal,” she replied. “You’ve been dragging this out for months.”

“There’s a right time to say something like this, Fi, and it hasn’t come up.”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked. “Oh God, are you moving?”

She sighed. “Ready now?”

Michael approached Sam. “Sam, we’re in love with you,” he declared, with vocal passion but the facial expression of someone ordering toast for breakfast.

“You’re so romantic,” Fiona complained, reaching over for Sam.

Sam’s features had curdled into a hilarious expression of utter confusion. “You what?” he said, notably not removing Fiona’s hand from his arm.

Fiona preened as Michael spoke. “We need you to help us raise this baby, Sam, but that’s not why we need you in our lives. We love you. We’re IN love with you, and we want you to be a part of our life in a very important way.” Michael gestured for Fiona to take his hand, and she did so. Sam stood still, but made no move in the affirmative or the negative. “We’re both pretty attached to you.”

“Sex-wise?”

Fiona smirked, and Michael shrugged. “She knows about Belize.”

The half-repressed memories Sam had been carrying around for years suddenly flew to the surface. “You swore you’d never tell anyone about that!”

“Girlfriend privileges, Sam,” Fiona replied airily. 

“That’s uncool,” Sam replied. 

“Would you like to tell me something about Michael?” Sam bent down and whispered into her ear. She raised an eyebrow. “You name your bullets?” 

Michael sighed. “We love you, Sam. We really do.” He took Sam’s other shoulder, and his fingers ghosted down the side of Sam’s neck, favoring his rope burns. “We’ve been a family for five years; we should make it official.”

And suddenly, the problems and worries that had been dogging Sam for months melted away. He grinned and wrapped an arm around Michael. “I could get used to that.” They began to move as a single unit away from the smoking car.

“That easily?” Michael wondered.

“He’s such a skeptic,” Sam complained.

“We’ll have to pound it out of him,” Fiona agreed. 

“I’m starting to question this decision,” Michael declared, but it was clear he was about to be overruled – and that he didn’t mind it at all.

In a single, unified gesture, they moved toward the cars. “Guys, I’ve just got one question,” Sam said, as he helped Fi into her Hyundai.

“What?” Fiona asked, contentment shining in her eyes.

“Which one of us should tell Maddie?” he asked impishly.

THE END


End file.
